Some Record Coffee Cargoes
With its superior loading and shipping facilities Brazil has been able to send extraordinarily large cargoes of coffee to the United States since the development of large modern freight-carrying steamships. While 75,000 or 90,000 bag cargoes were of common occurrence just prior to the outbreak of the World War, several shipments of more than 100,000 bags were made in the years 1915, 1916, and 1917. Up to January, 1919, the record was held by the steamship Bjornstjerne Bjornson which unloaded 136,424 bags at New York on November 17, 1915. Other shipments of more than 100,000 bags were by the Rossetti (December, 1900), 125,918 bags; the Wascana (March 3, 1915), 108,781 bags; the Wagama (October, 1916), 105,650 bags; the American (October 23, 1916), 124,212 bags; the Santa Cecilia (November 2, 1916), 105,500 bags, and the Dakotan (January 6, 1917), which carried 136,387 bags.
Transport Overseas
To bring green coffee to the consuming markets, both steamships and sailing vessels are used, although the latter have almost wholly given way to the speedier and more capacious modern steamers. Because of its large consumption, a constant stream of vessels is always on the way to the markets of the United States. The majority of these unload at New York, which in 1920 received about fifty-nine percent of all the coffee imported into this country. New Orleans came next, with about twenty-five percent; and San Francisco third, with about twelve percent.
The approximate time consumed in transporting green coffee overseas from the principal producing countries to the United States by freight steamships is shown in the table in the next column.
In some cases, that of Guadeloupe, for instance, the vessels stop at a number of ports, and this lengthens the time. This is also true of vessels running on the west coast of Central America and of those from Aden.
During the World War, one shipment of Timor coffee consumed three and a half years coming from Java to New York. It was aboard the German steamship Brisbane, which cleared from Batavia, July 4, 1914, and fearing capture, took refuge in Goa, Portuguese India, where it lay until Portugal joined the Allies. Then the Portuguese seized the vessel, and turned it over to the British, who moved it to Bombay. Here the cargo was finally transhipped to the City of Adelaide, reaching New York in January, 1918, three and a half years after the coffee left Batavia.
| Transportation Time for Coffee[J] | |||||
| Rio de Janeiro to New York | 11 to 16 | days | |||
| Santos | " | " | " | 14 to 18 | " |
| Bahia | " | " | " | 17 | " |
| Victoria | " | " | " | 19 | " |
| Maracaibo | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| Puerto Cabello | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| La Guaira | " | " | " | 8 | " |
| Costa Rica | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| Salvador | " | " | " | 18 | " |
| Mexico | " | " | " | 9 | " |
| Guatemala (Puerto Barrios) | " | " | " | 11 | " |
| Colombia | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| Haiti | " | " | " | 7 | " |
| Porto Rico | " | " | " | 5 | " |
| Guadeloupe | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| Hawaii (via P.C.) | " | " | " | 28 | " |
| Java (via Suez) | " | " | " | 30 | " |
| Sumatra (via Suez) | " | " | " | 30 | " |
| Singapore (via Suez) | " | " | " | 35 | " |
| India (via Suez) | " | " | " | 35 | " |
| Aden (via Suez) | " | " | " | 45 | " |
| Porto Rico | " | New Orleans | 7 | " | |
| Guadeloupe | " | " | " | 10 | " |
| Haiti | " | " | " | 7 | " |
| Guatemala | " | " | " | 8 | " |
| Colombia | " | " | " | 6 | " |
| Mexico | " | " | " | 4 | " |
| Salvador | " | " | " | 15 | " |
| Guatemala | " | San Francisco | 10 | " | |
| Costa Rica | " | " | " | 18 | " |
| Salvador | " | " | " | 14 | " |
| Mexico | " | " | " | 8 | " |
| Hawaii | " | " | " | 8 | " |
| Singapore | " | " | " | 30 | " |
| India | " | " | " | 33 | " |
[J] The American Legion and the Southern Cross, of the Munson Line, make the journey from Rio de Janeiro to New York in eleven days. These are freight-and-passenger vessels, and have carried as many as 5,000 bags of coffee at one time.
Java Coffee "Ex-Sailing Ships"